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Multicultural World in Zadie Smith's White Teeth

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Multicultural World in Zadie Smith's White Teeth Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích Pedagogická fakulta Katedra anglistiky Bakalářská práce Multicultural World in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth Multikulturní svět v románu Zadie Smith (Bílé zuby) Vypracoval: Jakub Vančura, Aj-Sv, 3. ročník Vedoucí práce: PhDr. Alice Sukdolová, Ph.D. České Budějovice 2015 Prohlašuji, že svoji bakalářskou práci na téma Multikulturní svět v románu Zadie Smith Bílé zuby jsem vypracoval samostatně pouze s použitím pramenů a literatury uvedených v seznamu citované literatury. Prohlašuji, že v souladu s § 47b zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. v platném znění souhlasím se zveřejněním své bakalářské práce, a to v nezkrácené podobě - v úpravě vzniklé vypuštěním vyznačených částí archivovaných pedagogickou fakultou elektronickou cestou ve veřejně přístupné části databáze STAG provozované Jihočeskou univerzitou v Českých Budějovicích na jejích internetových stránkách, a to se zachováním mého autorského práva k odevzdanému textu této kvalifikační práce. Souhlasím dále s tím, aby toutéž elektronickou cestou byly v souladu s uvedeným ustanovením zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. zveřejněny posudky školitele a oponentů práce i záznam o průběhu a výsledku obhajoby kvalifikační práce. Rovněž souhlasím s porovnáním textu mé kvalifikační práce s databází kvalifikačních prací Theses.cz provozovanou Národním registrem vysokoškolských kvalifikačních prací a systémem na odhalování plagiátů. Podepsáno dne 25. 6. 2015 v Českých Budějovicích…........................................................ Poděkování Rád bych poděkoval paní PhDr. Alice Sukdolové, Ph.D. za její rady, připomínky a podporu. Acknowledgement I would like to thank to PhDr. Alice Sukdolová, Ph.D. for her advice, comments and support. Abstract Firstly, the thesis focuses on the overall context of contemporary Anglo-American post-colonial literature and in a brief enumeration it covers British and American writers from various ethnic groups, whose novels are currently the most widely read (Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie in Britain, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan, Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie in the USA). The core of this thesis is the analysis of Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, its language and the overall multicultural context. The thesis includes the thematic aspects of the novel White Teeth (mixed marriages, skin colour, nurture of children from mixed families and different ethnic groups) and it focuses on the language and situational humour within the novel White Teeth. Key Words: Zadie Smith, White Teeth, post-colonial, postmodernism, hybridity, ethnicity Anotace Práce se nejprve soustředí na celkový kontext současné angloamerické postkoloniální literatury a ve stručném výčtu se zaměří na britské a americké autory z různých etnických skupin, jejichž próza je v současné době nejčtenější (Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie v Británii, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan, Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie v USA). Jádrem práce bude rozbor díla Zadie Smith White Teeth (Bílé Zuby) po jazykové stránce a v celkovém multikulturním kontextu. Práce zahrne tematické aspekty románu Bílé Zuby (smíšená manželství, barva pleti, výchova dětí ve smíšených rodinách a různých etnických skupinách) a zaměří se na jazykový a situační humor provázející dílo autorky. Klíčová slova: Zadie Smith, White Teeth, post-colonial, postmodernism, hybridity, ethnicity Table of contents 1. Introduction …………………………………………………….………………… 1 2. What is post-colonial literature? ……………………………..…………………… 2 2.1. Post-colonial literature …………………………….……………………... 2 2.2. Postmodernism ………………………………..………………………….. 3 2.3. Hysterical Realism ……………………………………………………..... 4 2.4. Ethnicity ………………………………………………………………….. 4 2.5. Hybridity ……………………………………………………………….... 5 2.6. Globalisation and universalism ……………………………………........... 6 3. The most talked about current authors of various ethnicities …………………….. 7 3.1. Hanif Kureishi ……………………………………………………….…... 7 3.2. Salman Rushdie …………………………………………………………... 8 3.3. Jhumpa Lahiri ……………………………………………………............. 9 3.4. Amy Tan ………………………………………………………………….. 10 3.5. Sandra Cisneros ………………………………………………………….. 11 3.6. Sherman Alexie ………………………………………………………....... 11 3.7. Zadie Smith ………………………………………………………............. 12 4. A Brief Summary of White Teeth ……………………………………………..….. 14 5. Individual characters ……………………………………………………………... 16 5.1. Archie Jones ………………………………….……………………........... 16 5.2. Samad Iqbal ………………………………………………………............ 19 5.3. Clara Jones (Bowden) ……………………………………………............. 21 5.4. Alsana Iqbal ………………………………………………….…………… 23 5.5. Irie Jones ………………………………………………………................ 24 5.6. Millat and Magid Iqbals …………………………………………….…… 25 5.7. Chalfen’s family …………………………………………………….…..... 26 5.8. Note ………………………………………………………........................ 27 6. Language and humour in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth …………………………..... 28 7. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………..……… 31 8. Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………… 34 1. Introduction Firstly, I explain the meaning of the terms: post-colonialism, postmodernism, hysterical realism, ethnicity, hybridity and globalization in order to avoid confusion since all the terms are more or less closely connected and since the majority of the writers within a field of post-colonial literature falls in multiple categories. Further, I briefly introduce the contemporary Anglo-American writers, who fall within post-colonial literature and who are often compared to each other. The critics have repetitively compared Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth with work of Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses, Shame), Hanif Kureishi (The Buddha of Suburbia) and others. The critics usually point out the similarities of the subjects such as ethnicity and hybridity. James Wood (a British literature critic) coined a new term a hysterical realism as the reaction on Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth and described the shift from Salman Rushdie’s use of magical realism to Smith’s hysterical realism. The core of the thesis is an analysis of each main character appearing in the story. The novel is heavily based on characters. The actual overall plot is not as important as the single events, where we can see how the individuals react. Therefore, I explain behaviour of the characters according to which culture, ethnicity, religion and social class they belong to. Last but not least I focus on the language and humour in the novel, which is an inseparable part of the novel. Finally I recapitulate the key features of Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth summarizing all the mentioned information. 1 2. What is post-colonial literature? The definition of post-colonial literature is not as easy as it would seem at first glance, because we tend to put it together with other subjects (literary categories) such as postmodernism, hysterical realism, ethnicity and hybridity. 2.1. Post-colonial literature There is no easy answer to that question. We could think that post-colonial literature simply refers to the period after (post-) the colonised countries gained their independence, which once had been ruled by European powers such as France, Spain, Great Britain and Portugal. But as Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin point in their work The Empire Writes Back the term “post-colonial” covers also the influence of the imperial process from the moment of colonisation up to the present day (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin 2004: 2). “Post-colonial as we define it does not mean ‘post-independence’, or ‘after colonialism’, for this would be to falsely ascribe an end to the colonial process. Post-colonialism, rather, begins from the very first moment of colonial contact.” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin, 2003: 117) However, this statement covers only the time period and not the countries in question. Again we could consider all the literatures of once colonised countries including the USA as post-colonial literatures. But due to the fact the USA gained its independence in the 18th century and became one of the global powers, its post- colonial nature is not recognized. (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin 2004: 2) Another thing is that the term “post-colonial” refers only to mutual aspects of otherwise totally different countries. Post-colonial literature has resulted from the influence of the imperial culture and the culture of the colonised country. Post-colonialism is regarded as the need of the nations, groups or ethnicities, which have been victims of imperialism, to find their identity in the west world. The identity crisis is also a result of the fact that post-colonial writers are driven to use the imperial language. (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin 2003: 125) 2 2.2. Postmodernism The term “post–modernism” is used in so many fields such as art, philosophy, architecture, economics, literature and popular culture. Therefore it is hard to set an exact period of postmodernism in general. If we talk about postmodernism in philosophy we talk about the turn of the 19th and 20th century, but postmodernism in popular culture started after the Second World War during 1950’, when pop art came out. Anyway, postmodernism in literature is what we are interested in. According to Barry Lewis postmodernism in literature was a period between 1960’ and 1990’. It started with several events; assassination of J. F. Kennedy in 1963, Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, rapid technological change in 1960’ and it ended up when it could no longer compete with television and cinema in 1990’. (Stuart Sim, 2001: 121) During the 1960’ the news was more and more absurd and unreal. The literature needed a change. Writers had two ways
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